


The Blue Stone

by doop_doop



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, is Canon-Typical Angst a thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 17:24:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21431959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doop_doop/pseuds/doop_doop
Summary: Once upon a time, Ignatz and Dedue were almost friends.Then the war came.(Written for the Ignatz Week day 5 prompt "Battle".)
Relationships: Dedue Molinaro & Ignatz Victor
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30
Collections: FE3H Rarepair Port's All Pairings Challenge, Ignatz Week 2019





	The Blue Stone

It wasn’t originally Ignatz’s plan to spend so much time in the greenhouse. Sure, it was nice and all, but there were plenty of other nice places in the monastery where he could spend his time, places that weren’t quite so stifling and humid. But Ignatz quickly realized that it was much cheaper to make paint than buy it, and he was far from home - far from the fields where he knew most plants on sight, and knew what pigments could be made with them. No, Ignatz had no choice but to go to the greenhouse and beg, barter and bribe his way into getting the plants he needed. Luckily his paints didn’t require much, but it didn’t take long until he was on a first-name basis with the head gardener.

And, quietly, minding his own business but always listening in, Dedue was there too. He was such a fixture in the greenhouse that it began to startle Ignatz when he was not there. At first the two of them didn’t speak to one another outside of polite greetings, but Ignatz was eaten up with curiosity; he knew just enough about Dedue to know he’d be a treasure trove of knowledge about the world. The only issue would be bridging the gap between them to start that first conversation.

In the end it was Dedue himself who did it. He met Ignatz in front of the greenhouse one day, looking as if he was waiting there for him. He nodded silently when their eyes met, and Ignatz’s heart raced.

“May I speak with you?” Dedue asked.

“Of course!”

Dedue led them inside the greenhouse, his hands clasped behind his back. “It did not occur to me at first, but because you come from the alliance, it is possible you don’t understand current events within Faerghus. Do you know about the Tragedy of Duscur?”

“I... yes, I know of it,” Ignatz said slowly, wondering where this was going.

“Good,” Dedue said. “Then I do not need to explain how it could harm you to be seen with me.”

“Harm me in what way?”

“It could harm your reputation. It is common knowledge here that I come from Duscur. Whether you personally care about that or not, there are certainly others whose respect for you will drop if you are seen in my presence.”

“I…” Ignatz’s head spun as he tried to comprehend the words. “You’re telling me to avoid you because you come from Duscur?”

Dedue nodded. “I would not be offended, of course, if you were to do so. In fact, I would recommend it. If you wish to continue to spend time at the greenhouse, we could make a schedule, to avoid spending excess time together. Even though we do not seek one another out, others may assume we do, based on shared proximity.”

Ignatz shifted from foot to foot, trying to process all of this. “No,” he said at last.

Dedue raised his eyebrows.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Ignatz continued. “You’re a student, just like I am, and I intend to treat you just as I’d treat any other student. I won’t avoid you, and I won’t ask you to avoid me. The idea is… it’s preposterous.”

Dedue shrugged, looking down and to the side. “Do as you wish.”

Ignatz gathered his courage - maybe the timing was strange, but this was his chance: they were finally talking. It was now or never. “And another thing!”

Dedue lifted his head, blinking at him curiously.

“I want to speak to you more,” Ignatz said. “I have a lot of questions for you.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Like, what’s Duscur like? There is so little written about Duscur itself - the culture, the people, the art-”

“Duscur is no more,” Dedue said, turning away from Ignatz to face the flowers behind him. His words had a note of finality in them, a heaviness that made Ignatz feel sick. He turned and left the building, his hands balled into fists and tears pricking at his eyes, any further questions entirely forgotten.

\---

Ignatz expected Dedue to act differently towards him after that first meeting, but he did not. When they saw each other in the greenhouse, they exchanged the same cursory greetings, as polite and distant as ever. Neither avoided the other, but to say the gap had been bridged would be a lie. Ignatz needed to reexamine his approach.

_ Duscur is no more.  _ The words made him aware of just how different their life experiences were, and how different they were as people. Not realizing that earlier was his mistake; he’d assumed Dedue would be as excited to talk about his homeland as Ignatz was to hear about it. But Ignatz knew there were things they  _ did _ have in common, namely the greenhouse itself and the plants therein. Ignatz would start smaller, start humbler, and get to know Dedue as a person before digging so deep. 

The next time he saw Dedue in the greenhouse, he went up to him directly. “Dedue?”

“Hello, Ignatz.”

“I have a question.”

“Yes?” 

Was that annoyance in Dedue’s voice? Did he anticipate Ignatz would pry more?  _ All the more reason for me to prove him wrong,  _ Ignatz thought, and mustered his courage to continue. “Do you know any plants that can be used to make blue paint? There is a particular shade of sky blue I am having problems mixing - there was a flower back home that I could use, but it doesn’t seem to bloom here…” 

“A flower?” Dedue said. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “No, but I know of a stone.”

“A stone?” 

Dedue nodded. “When ground into a fine powder, it can be used for paint.”

“Where can I find it?”

“They sell it in the marketplace, down in the village.” Before Ignatz could even open his mouth to ask, Dedue went on: “I am going there in a few days for an errand. If you come with me, I will show you where they sell it.”

After that incident there was something much easier between them, more casual. Ignatz began coming into the greenhouse not just for plants, but to chat with Dedue. He even dared to sketch him now and then - his face was so unlike anyone else’s that Ignatz’s hands itched to put it down on paper: the sharp angles of his eyebrows, the squareness of his jaw. Probably Ignatz wasn’t sneaky, and Dedue knew; but if he minded, he said nothing. 

As winter turned to spring, they began to chat more and more; but, for all the greenhouse felt like another world, it could not protect them forever. War came, dragging them their separate ways, and for five years Ignatz saw nothing more of Dedue than the face in his own old sketches. He wondered sometimes how his former classmate was doing - but more often than not he had no time to wonder, and Dedue, he knew, was probably feeling the same.

\---

The sun beat down on Gronder Field. The air smelled like blood. 

Ignatz had lost his way, had chased an opponent all the way into the forest at the battlefield’s edge and had lost sight of his comrades. But, rounding the crest of a hill, he saw bodies, two of them. One looked strikingly familiar… 

No, Ignatz realized. There was one body, and one man still alive. Ignatz could see the rise and fall of his chest, labored though it seemed.

“Dedue,” he said, running towards him. Dedue, propped up against a tree, grimaced and tried in vain to raise his axe. He lacked the strength to raise it higher than parallel to the ground, and his head lolled against the tree - Ignatz didn’t think he could even support it on its own.

“Dedue,” Ignatz said again, “it’s me. Ignatz.”

There was no light of recognition in Dedue’s eyes, no softening of his gaze. But Ignatz pulled out a vulnerary regardless; he’d experienced enough battle to know a dying man when he saw one, and didn’t want to watch someone he’d once called a friend perish in front of his eyes.

Ignatz pushed right past Dedue’s raised arm of protest and held the vial to his lips, forcing the liquid down his throat. Then he took a step back. A vulnerary wouldn’t be enough to heal all of Dedue’s wounds, but it would fend off death for now. 

“Ignatz,” Dedue said. He inhaled sharply, like he was still fighting to breathe. “You’re not going to kill me?” 

“Kill you!” Ignatz laughed humorlessly. “Why would I kill you?” 

“We’re on opposing sides.” 

“Can you even tell me why we’re fighting?” Ignatz asked, his voice coming out angrier than he’d intended. The sight of Dedue’s wounds made bile rise in the back of his throat. “I sure can’t.”

“Because Edelgard…”

“No, Dedue, I mean  _ you and me. _ I’m not on Edelgard’s side. I’m against her as much as you are.”

Dedue blinked up at him. “I’m following His Highness’s orders.” 

Ignatz squatted on the ground, out of the reach of Dedue’s axe. He didn’t think Dedue was going to attack him, but men who felt cornered sometimes did strange things, and experience had taught him to be wary. “Claude could be your ally, you know. We need to stop attacking each other and pull back to regroup - there’s no reason any of us should be fighting anyone but Edelgard right now.” 

“Edelgard,” Dedue echoed. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I need to get back to His Highness.”

“I don’t think you can walk. I only gave you a vulnerary.”

Dedue paused and seemed to assess his condition. Then he shook his head. “No, I don’t think I can.” 

“Dedue,” Ignatz said, “I have concoctions. Enough to heal you fully.”

Dedue looked at him, mouth a flat line. He knew there was a catch; he must have heard it in Ignatz’s voice. “But,” Ignatz went on, “you need to promise me you won’t attack anyone from the Alliance except in direct self-defense.” 

“No.”

_ “No?”  _

“His Highness said-”

“You’re stuck here until you get healed!” Ignatz cut in, his voice rising in anger. “Dedue, I’m offering to save you. Just don’t attack my side. We could be your allies!”

“His Highness said to kill everyone not from the Kingdom.”

_ “I’m _ not from the Kingdom.”

Dedue stared at him, his face blank.  _ Carefully  _ blank, Ignatz thought - Dedue’s silence, his lack of expression, was always calculated as carefully as others calculated their words. “I know.”

“Would you kill me?”

Dedue nodded. “I was ordered to do so.”

Ignatz felt a laugh bubble inside him, manic and irrepressible. The man Dedue had killed earlier made everything in their vicinity stink like gore, and Ignatz could see him out of the corner of his eye, a red stain on his vision. “Do it,” Ignatz said, and carefully fished two concoctions out of his bag. He handed them to Dedue one at a time. “Use them and kill me.” 

Dedue drank. Ignatz watched his wounds heal, the dried blood and holes in his clothes the only sign he’d been injured at all. “Thank you,” he said, and got to his feet.

“Kill me!” Ignatz tossed his bow onto the ground, then unsheathed his sword and threw that too. “Didn’t Dimitri order you to do so? I won’t fight back!” 

“Goodbye,” Dedue said, nodding politely.  _ Politely. _

More laughter bubbled out of Ignatz. “I knew you were lying!” he said. “I knew you wouldn’t kill me!” But he was talking to Dedue’s back; he could not tell if the other man heard him at all.

Ignatz sat down in the shadow of the tree, the same place Dedue had nearly died, and tipped his head back against its trunk. The light filtering through dappled his vision pale green; between the leaves Ignatz caught glimpses of the sky.  _ I need to go, _ he thought, but could not bring himself to move. For a long, long time he could do nothing more than wait and stare up at the empty sky above him. But he was waiting for nothing. Dedue was gone; in the distance, Ignatz heard the sounds of battle. He had to go back, too.

But the color of the sky when he stared straight up at it, the color that blinked at him from between the leaves, was familiar to Ignatz - deeply familiar, like something that had happened long ago. Then he realized what he was thinking of, and laughed. There was a stone he knew, once upon a time - a stone he’d bought in the market outside of Garreg Mach half a dozen times when he’d been a student. Dedue had taught him how to grind it into a fine powder and mix it with water to make a shade so startlingly blue it seemed more vivid than life. 

_ The sky is that stone,  _ Ignatz thought, and rose to his feet. 

**Author's Note:**

> [\- my twitter](https://twitter.com/doop_doop2)  
Special thanks to [the fe3h rarepair server](https://discord.gg/SPeGQcm) for giving me confidence with this one.
> 
> This was partially inspired by [this](https://twitter.com/Siplick/status/1188939731494690817?s=19) beautiful art by Siplick.


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